Like father-figure, like son-figure, Chapter three
Chapter three of Like father-figure, like son-figure. Story On a beautiful day, complete with an Miles Falcon-cabin-plane flying overhead, Kit and the Jungle-Aces had decided to visit the Museum of History (and maybe meet Ignatius if he's there). Kit had told Ramón and Rey about his and Baloo's encounter of Ignatz and they were eating it up (though Rey thought it was irrational for Baloo and Ingatz to hate each other, and is certain Riven wouldn't like them fighting one bit, which all the Jungle-Aces knew). Upon arriving at the museum, three familiar gangsters burst out the door: Trader Moe and his two dumb goons. "We got it, we got William Stansbury's book" Moe cheers showing off Captain Stansbury's old spell-book which along with a few other possessions of his were giving to the museum by Louie's, Kit hadn't bumped into the gangster-gator in a while, "Trader Moe!" Kit whispers to everyone else, and it gets worse when Moe caught sight of the teens, hovering on Kit the most, "well if it isn't the cloud-surfing brat" he taunts, "yeah if it isn't" the rhino-goon adds, "yeah the cloud-surfing brat" the gorilla-goon finished, "and I see you gotta son there too" Moe remarks looking at Ramon, "he's not my son!" Kit objected, which was biologically true, "awe who cares" Moe objects, "yeah who cares" the rhino-goon adds, "yeah" the gorilla-goon finishes and before the kids could say anything Moe and his goons try to shoot them with their guns, however the teens all take cover on instinct and hide behind a statue, "stop you hoodlums" a voice cried, one Kit recognized and all the kids look over and see Ignatz with some security-guards coming out the museum doorway, only to take cover themselves when Moe shoots at them, though the Jungle-Aces saw there chance to intervene when Moe was distracted and jump into action, Ramon was just about to fallow when Kit pulls him back and brings him over to Ignatz, who was glad to see the adolescent-bear, "Ramon, stay with Ignatz and don't do anything until I say it's safe" Kit orders the scamp, who wasn't happy, "awe come on Kit, you said you wanted me to return the favor someday, well that day has arrived" Ramon argues, "that was before I knew we would be up against Trader Moe, who has guns on him" Kit counters and looks at Ignatz, "Ignatz watch him for me" he orders, "uh okay, and is he your son?" Ignatius wondered, "biologically no" Kit answers and leaves to join his teammates, leaving a huffing Ramon, "he better not have lied to me" he complained, "so Kit adopted you or something? I haven't seen him since he was your height, you live at Higher-for-Hire too? did he ever tell you about our escapade?" Ignatz questions though Ramon wasn't listening, more focused on the battle. Ernie was constantly dodging bullets from Moe while Rey had to watch for his swinging tail, Bert and Sam were tackling the ape-goon while Oscar and Felix were doing the same to the rhino-goon, however it turns around when Kit body-slams Moe while he wasn't looking, causing Moe to shoot wildly before banging the gun on Kit's head, making the teenage-bear get off and fall on his back dizzy. Ernie and Rey run to him. "You alright?" Rey asks, "yeah, just dizzy and throbbing" Kit answers while sitting up, "where's Moe?" he asks, "right here, and nobody move" Moe voiced causing all three to look at him, "oops" Rey and Ernie mutter having totally disregarded him, Moe then looks at his goons wrestling with the rest of the Jungle-Aces and yells "hey!", instantly they all stop fighting and look, the boys were alarmed to see their three friends held hostage, "if you-s so much as blink wrong, say goodbye to the cloud-surfer" Moe threatens pointing his gun at Ernie Rey and Kit, immediately the other Jungle-Aces back off, "yeah what he said" the rhino-goon adds, "yeah" the ape-goon finishes, "looks like I'll get my chance after all" Ramon murmurs and crept toward a batting-stick one of Ignatz's guards dropped and tiptoes off, "kid are you nuts?" Ignatz begged not wanting to incite Kit's wrath, but Ramon was resolute to carry out with his rescue. "Looks like I finally beat you Cloudkicker, I'm gonna enjoy this" Moe taunts Kit, "I'm not afraid of you" Kit retorts, "well you will be, you will be" Moe whispers and Kit was starting to feel a little afraid, but the miracle happens when a batting stick hits Moe on the head, causing him to wobble and allow the three teens to getaway, though Kit did see Ramon and was not happy that he revealed himself, "bull's eye" Ramon cheers, "why you little, you're gonna pay for that" Moe vows but wouldn't get the chance when he heard sirens echoing, "drat the cops" Moe murmurs to himself before focusing on Ramon again, "the next time we meet that is" he adds and with that he and his goons flee, leaving their target behind, which was claimed by Oscar, "think we should go after them?" Sam wonders, "nah, they left the museum-piece, that's all that matters" Oscar dismissed, "boy Kit I owe you and your friends big time" Ignatz applauds, though Kit turns to Ramon who freezes at the scowl Kit was giving him, "Ramon, you and I are gonna have a talk" Kit says. Later, Kit Rey and Ramon arrived home via a police-car. Baloo Riven and Rebecca were glad they're alright when they were filled in, but were quite surprised to see Kit putting Ramon in a time-out. "Awe come on Kit, we're even now" Ramon cries, "you disobeyed me, that doesn't count" Kit objects, "does it matter? if it weren't for me you'd be Trader Moe's crime-scene right now" Ramon reminds, "can I say something?" Rebecca asks, "no!" Kit and Ramon roar, making Rebecca run behind Baloo, "if you don't think I'm used to danger, well think again, I've been living with you guys for awhile, so I'm really well accustomed to danger" Ramon says, "Ramon, there's no point taking risks that shouldn't be taken" Kit states mimicking Baloo, "what does that even mean?" Ramon demanded, "it means putting yourself in danger when you shouldn't have, at least that's what I think it means" Kit answers and looks at Baloo who only shrugged, "well how were you going to get yourself out of that situation then? no one but me was willing to help" Ramon questioned and Kit honestly couldn't think of a retort to that, but that still didn't excuse what happened, "this discussion is over, and for the record: you're grounded" Kit proclaims, "what?" Ramon gasps, "yeah grounded, and you can't ride the Sea Duck for a while either" Kit states, Ramon started to feel betrayed, "you may have adopted me Kit, but technically, you're not my dad" he growls causing everybody present to gasp, Kit most of all, those were the exact same words Kit himself said to Baloo during their fight over Daring-Dan-Dawson (at least the last part was), and Kit was starting to feel a painful twinge in his chest, "and I don't have to listen to you" Ramon adds, making Kit's twinge hurt more as the scamp stomps away from everybody toward the backdoor, opens it, walks out and slams it, leaving everybody in silence, the others look at Kit who sighs and let out a few tears while turning away, "I'll go talk to him" Baloo proposed, "which one?" Riven wondered, "I was thinking Ramon, I'm pretty sure he's feeling remorseful" Baloo says, "of course, I can talk to Kit" Rebecca offers and Baloo nods and walks after Ramon, while Rebecca walks to Kit, "Kit, sweetie are you okay?" Rebecca asks making Kit look at her with teary-eyes, "no Ms. Cunningham, I'm not" he answers and turns away, "I'm a terrible father" he adds, much to Rebecca's surprise, "Kit no you're not" she objects drawing his attention again, "Kit listen to me: every parent gets into a fight with their child sooner or later, you did with Baloo once remember?" Rebecca says, "yeah I know" Kit admits, that offensive sentence of "you can't tell me what to do! you're not my dad!" was still livid in Kit's head, was this what Baloo felt when he received that sentence? "I'm sure he's sorry, and that he didn't mean it" Rebecca assures, "I hope so" Kit mutters and walks away to the front-door, Rebecca was about to ask him where he was going, but decided not to, feeling that Kit needs to be left alone for now. Outside on the dock, Baloo found Ramon sitting under the sign at the very end and walks over. Ramon looked up with a sad face before returning to gazing across the lagoon. "Oh hey Baloo" he greets in a sad voice, as Baloo suspected Ramon was sounding remorseful and sits down with him, "company?" he says, Ramon only shrugs, they both sat quietly for a while before Baloo spoke, "Ramon look, Kit and I would fight sometimes too" he says drawing Ramon's attention, "really?" he wonders, "yeah, there was this one time his cloud-surfing caught the eye of a scoundrel named Daring Dan Dawson, so much so that I was feeling jealous when Kit began displaying interest in him, and alarmed when he began doing some reckless stunts with Dawson" Baloo reveals, "what was wrong with that? Kit does dangerous things all the time, and so do you" Ramon reminds, "yeah well, Kit was doing it when it was completely unnecessary, that's what worried me, unfortunately our clashing opinions were making Kit and me drift apart: one night when I lectured him about it and told him to avoid Dan, he blew up on me with what looked like betrayal, even going as far as to remind me that I wasn't really his dad either, I figured our friendship was officially over at that" Baloo says, "then what made him come back?" Ramon asks, "well it turns out Dawson was a criminal known for getting others to do air-stunts that would surely get you killed, Kit himself was against that, and after turning Dan over to the cops we made amends" Baloo finished and breathed, "look Ramon, I know you were only trying to protect him when Trader-Moe had him cornered, but he's just trying to be a good father" he adds, "I still want him to be my father, but he seems to think me rescuing him was some kind of mistake, I was the only one gutsy enough to do it at all, and yet he sounded like he didn't want me to" Ramon says, "I'm sure deep down, he is grateful, I think it's how you intervened that displeased him, besides you really hurt him back there, you even made him cry" Baloo responds, "he's crying?" Ramon exclaims, "a little, what you said about him not really being your dad, that was the exact same thing he said to me, those words are a lot more powerful than you think" Baloo confirms as Ramon looks at the water, now more guilty, Baloo decides to give him time alone and left. With Kit, he was just strolling through town, passing parents with kids along the way, which was painful for him to be around. At a window that lead into a restaurant Kit saw a family of sauropods: a mother a father and three younglings (two sons and one daughter). To Kit they reminded him of his time with Ramon, and last time he saw a family like this filled him with despair over his dead-parents, but this time the despair was over Ramon. That twinge started up again with more intensity when the father-sauropod gently cleaned one of his boy's faces of food. Kit left with tears unable to look anymore: it was just too painful. Eventually he finds himself in Cape-Park and sits on a bench, unfortunately he saw a cynodont-boy (a Probainognathus) playing catch with a frisbee with another who was a full-grown male, clearly the boy's father. "Thanks for taking me to the park dad" the boy expressed much to his dad's glee, Kit got up and walked away, his thoughts whirling to the moment Trader Moe had him at gunpoint: he had to admit, if it wasn't for Ramon he would be dead, and Ramon orphaned again, who along with his friends would be devastated, Kit was grateful, but he wished Ramon didn't come rescue in an unplanned and idiotic way, "maybe I was too hard on him" he says to himself, but then he felt his paternal-instincts kick in that urged him to reconcile with Ramon, so with renewed vigor he jogs back to home. Ramon was sitting on his bed depressed when he heard the door open and Kit poked his head through. "Hey" Kit greets, "hey" Ramon returns dully, Kit walks in fully and sits at his bed, noticing Ramon seemed upset about something, "you okay?" Kit peeps, "not really" Ramon admits and Kit knew what it meant, "look Ramon" Kit began gaining Ramon's attention, "I'm sorry, for lecturing you, I am grateful that you saved me, I guess I owe you now" Kit apologized jokingly, making Ramon smile and walk over to hug Kit who gladly accepted, "let's just say we're eternally even, and I'm sorry too: you were just trying to protect me is all" Ramon replies, making Kit smile, glad that Ramon isn't holding it against him anymore, "Kit?" Ramon says, "yes?" Kit responds, "am I still grounded?" Ramon wondered, "only for tonight, I'll end it tomorrow" Kit suggests, "fair enough" Ramon shrugged, "by the way: my military-school is unveiling some kind of new aircraft, called the Airspeed AS.51 Horsa-glider, designed for troop-carrying, you can come see it if you want" Kit proposes, "sure" Ramon accepted happily cuddling Kit, who cuddles back. From the doorway the others were watching with smiles: glad to see they're friends again. The End Gallery Category:Fanon for the talespin series Category:Fan fiction